[Official] Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 22 of 23

[S griffin]

Did enjoy that one. One Max had to fight. Credit to Leclerc and Perez for giving it a good go. All 3 deserved their podium places. Certainly the fans got more for their money’s worth than they did on Friday

Still annoyed about the penalty for Sainz though, no way does the punishment fit the crime. Clearly force majure should have been enforced

[Richard C]

Fans tore down some of the blocking screens...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...s-gp/10549048/

Richard

[Sodemo]

When you have corners like Tamburello being totally changed post Senna’s death, yet that final turn at Las Vegas gets a free pass from a safety standpoint, that is some real double standards bullshit from the FIA.

[broadrun96]

Watched it, absolutely terrible TV guys. Lost count at 25 shots of empty track when the cut was from a pass or cars in DRS. T1 is garbage, T1 lap 1 was a joke as neither even tried to make the corner. Both deserved 5 seconds, Max for the FIA being stupid and making inside not P1 so his attempt was always gonna suck, Charles for not even trying to race and draw a penalty. Further back in the field, well the spins and contact spoke for itself

Show turned up to 11, well it's Vegas so 11 IS turned down. The cameras trying to show Vegas at night from air isn't great, the lights are by law turned down to ground mostly so up isn't like at grade. Pointless taking away from the track and didn't add much, building height also makes shots too short

Max is just toying with everyone, from almost 5 seconds to just over 2 seconds trying to get the dumb idea of shedload of wing on Sergio.

George just can't drive and pay attention at all can he? Not the first time he basically drove like well I can't make a pass here, oh sht what's he doing there? He needs bigger mirrors on the car

Mid pack race overall but the lack of prior race data and simulations so everyone does the same thing. Early VSC and SC is the only reason there was as much action I think. Will be interesting to see next year with some data. Feels like they might not make it through the 10 year deal with some of the area complaints, but casinos run the town and they appear to be onboard long term so far.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Fans tore down some of the blocking screens...



https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...s-gp/10549048/



Richard

Surprised they didn't use the screen with chain link fence well in front so you can't reach it. Every other track does that, Road Atlanta has panels inside and fencing between the banners and your hands so you can't cut it, and chain link roof over it. The screens at Chicago for the Nascar races were well inside the chain link, and stories tall in some areas to stop the Chicago tradition of selling balcony or roof space to look in the stadium

[S griffin]

It was quite refreshing to hear Max give Russell the benefit of the doubt for the incident in a calm manner on the radio. And I disagree with the notion the George can’t race. He drove well to fourth on the road prior to the penalty. And it could be argued that the penalty wasn’t needed as he already penalised himself more than Max

[GTRMagic]

Being unused to having time friendly Grand Prix to watch in this part of the world, I found it difficult to set aside ‘normal’ time to watch.
Watching late at night for me has usually been an individual pursuit.. yet I seemed to have found all these ‘experts’ hanging around watching with me.
I do now if that’s a good thing or not.
Presumably it means viewership in my little domicile is increased
But I didn’t like watching as in the places I usually comment (or yell) to myself in the quiet of darkness.. it didn’t quite fit with an audience.
And they wanted to eat and drink during the race and I was quite happy just watching and learning..

Perhaps I am getting too old for this stuff

[TCT]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It was quite refreshing to hear Max give Russell the benefit of the doubt for the incident in a calm manner on the radio. And I disagree with the notion the George can’t race. He drove well to fourth on the road prior to the penalty. And it could be argued that the penalty wasn’t needed as he already penalised himself more than Max

He is involved in too many of those silly incidents.
Hence the "can't race" comments I think.


Good on him though: he knows he's done too many silly things this seasons.
If he learns from it, he will come out better in the end.

Originally Posted by S griffin

And it could be argued that the penalty wasn’t needed as he already penalised himself more than Max

Standard penalty, and justified I think. GR himself didn't even complain about it (this time)


"Wasn't needed because he punished himself more... "

It never works that way and you know that too.


+-+-


If ever there was an unnecessary penalty it was the one given to the #55 Ferrari. The one the Mercedes team boss absolutely did not want to see removed.
So maybe this is karma?

Watch out Toto, only 4 points left of your advantage!

[S griffin]

Sorry, but drivers learn from their mistakes with or without penalties. Too much risk ruining their own race makes them learn next time. That was my point about Russell’s penalty, even if it was less of a problem than Sainz’s penalty

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

When you have corners like Tamburello being totally changed post Senna’s death, yet that final turn at Las Vegas gets a free pass from a safety standpoint, that is some real double standards bullshit from the FIA.

Excepting that in 94 Tamburello had hard fixed precast concrete, and Las Vegas had a lot of SAFER Barriers in front of the (movable) concrete blocks, I agree.

Oh, hang on...

[bathurst77]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Fans tore down some of the blocking screens...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...s-gp/10549048/

Richard

Pink Floyd fans?
"Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!"

[S griffin]

I also seem to remember Tamburello was a longer radius corner. Hardly comparable to the last corner in Vegas

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It was quite refreshing to hear Max give Russell the benefit of the doubt for the incident in a calm manner on the radio. And I disagree with the notion the George can’t race. He drove well to fourth on the road prior to the penalty. And it could be argued that the penalty wasn’t needed as he already penalised himself more than Max

The comment was can't drive and look in mirrors. And the multiple incidents and contact with others shows he might need the bigger mirrors to tow a caravan. Good on him for not arguing but he's not covering himself in glory is he? And it's not intentional shove em out of the way driving, that is a plus, it's just his focus. When Max is behind you, expect he's gonna try when you leave a quarter car. Just feels like he was hyped and showed promise to maybe back slide a bit

[chavez]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

When you have corners like Tamburello being totally changed post Senna’s death, yet that final turn at Las Vegas gets a free pass from a safety standpoint, that is some real double standards bullshit from the FIA.

Possibly at the time of the changes to Tamburello safety measures such as safer barriers did not exist or street circuits, for some reason only known to the FIA, get a pass on certain corners that wouldn't fly at permanent circuits.

[chillibowl]

Just speculation but perhaps the current FIA and FOM regimes don’t think of ‘safety’ in the same way as previous leadership did?

[Richard C]

Has anyone called out the special Vegas liveries for the cars? I know a few teams ran them. I loved the AT livery. But the stand out for me was the Ferrari. They were doing a throwback to the 312 T4, but it just looked absolutely stunning to me. The white on the shark fin, the white with black "Ferrari" on the rear wing, the roundel on the nose with car number, the white with red Shell logo on the side. I know it is a temporary livery, but they should keep it.

Originally Posted by bathurst77

Pink Floyd fans?
"Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!"

I am big Pink Floyd fan. I don't know why I didn't think of that!! I was thinking more of Jeff Goldbloom's character in Jurassic park saying "Nature will find a way". Thinking... "Fans will find a way"

Richard

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Fans tore down some of the blocking screens...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...s-gp/10549048/

Richard

I recall something similar at Silverstone for the WEC back in 2014-2016.

They had all these fabric covers blocking the view around the loop area. In years previous they just had a small sign saying no spectating, however it was deemed perfectly fine to walk by that area, but stopping your feet moving and taking a look seemingly wasn’t allowed… cue marshals to come over and tell us off. Bizarre.

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

The comment was can't drive and look in mirrors. And the multiple incidents and contact with others shows he might need the bigger mirrors to tow a caravan. Good on him for not arguing but he's not covering himself in glory is he? And it's not intentional shove em out of the way driving, that is a plus, it's just his focus. When Max is behind you, expect he's gonna try when you leave a quarter car. Just feels like he was hyped and showed promise to maybe back slide a bit

I think he’s still learning. Overall his racecraft is fine. He’s very quick to learn from mistakes and not linger on them. I just hope he gets a better car next season to show his talent. This year the car has been shocking, with a lot of missed opportunities like in Australia, with mechanical failure and throwing it away in Singapore

[PhilipR]

Why does everything need to be penalised nowadays and someone must be at fault?

To me the Ver -Rus incident was just a race incident. Ver lunged form a long way back and kind of forced himself in the corner. Rus probably did not expect it and at the point he probably does not check his mirrors. Add the weird modern street track design where you have long wide straights lead into tight and narrow corners, very wide and heavy cars and things like these can happen. Also I wonder how well would have Ver made the corner had he not leaned on Russell. Both were able to continue, just a racing incident.

Same with first lap - Ver pushed Lec wide but I do not think it was on purpose, cold track and cold tires can lead to that. I think here the stewards just wanted to add drama to the race

[Aysedasi]

For me, the first lap incident was a slam dunk in that Verstappen forced Leclerc out and left him with absolutely nowhere to go. The Verstappen/Russell incident though was just a racing incident in my book that didn't warrant a penalty.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

I think here the stewards just wanted to add drama to the race

The stewards only get involved if the race director asks them to.

• Incident happens
• Incident is reported by observers/post chiefs/sector marshals to race control
• Race control team look at the report and their own coverage ("noted")
• If necessary, they ask the stewards to look into it ("under investigation")
• Stewards decide based on the report(s) whether the outcome is "No Further Action", "Penalty", or "Will be investigated after the session/race/meeting"

Drama doesn't come into it.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Greem

The stewards only get involved if the race director asks them to.

• Incident happens
• Incident is reported by observers/post chiefs/sector marshals to race control
• Race control team look at the report and their own coverage ("noted")
• If necessary, they ask the stewards to look into it ("under investigation")
• Stewards decide based on the report(s) whether the outcome is "No Further Action", "Penalty", or "Will be investigated after the session/race/meeting"

Drama doesn't come into it.

Not to mention that the Stewards shouldn't be watching the race so cannot be swayed by anything other than the incident they are reviewing.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Just speculation but perhaps the current FIA and FOM regimes don’t think of ‘safety’ in the same way as previous leadership did?

Who knows… what I think is that some of these street circuits work to a different set of safety rules whilst permanent circuits have to adhere to a much more draconian set of guidelines.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Who knows… what I think is that some of these street circuits work to a different set of safety rules whilst permanent circuits have to adhere to a much more draconian set of guidelines.

It's not different rules, but a different set of requirements (for the venue). They all adhere to Appendix O though.

Street circuits are not permanent, so only have to provide the requirements for the users over an F1 weekend. Those categories on the package are the only consideration in terms of whether the safety measures are suitable.

Permanent circuits will have to cater for many different users through the course of a year, and so will have different considerations when it comes to design.

The comparison has been made between Imola and Las Vegas in this thread. When considering the barrier(s), the speed and likely impact angles of F1 cars is considered (only) when it comes to Las Vegas, and the barriers were selected accordingly.
When looking at the requirements for Imola, the circuit management have to consider all user types, and the associated speed and impact angles.

[S griffin]

The Vegas circuit is a bit bland, but fine. I don’t see it as dangerous. It’s not going to be anyone’s favourite of course, especially compared with the likes of Spa and Monza or the aforementioned Imola. But it’s better than others we have on the calendar